


show me the arms aloft

by magisterequitum



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Pirates, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 23:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lost Treasure of Odin is a highly sought after prize by anyone who's ever heard whispers of it. The Lady Sif, Pirate Queen of the Caribbean, comes to Port Royal for information, and stumbles onto one Captain Loki Laufeyson of Her Royal Majesty's Navy. Rather than turn tail and run, she chooses to take him on board to use herself in her plans, though the Captain may be planning things himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	show me the arms aloft

It's like this:

She's got her dagger against his throat, and his own in his hand feels clumsy in comparison, his fingers loose and sweaty. So close she is that he can smell the perfume in her hair and feel the swell of her breasts against his back.

Sif presses her forehead to his temple, and Loki can see from the corner of her eye her teeth as she draws her lips back in a snarl.

His heart beats heavy in his chest. He can hear it, a drum in his blood, thrumming through his veins. God be damned, he thinks. His pistol's too far away, she'd slit his throat before he could get it.

"I did tell you I wasn't to be trusted," she exhales against his ear, and her voice sounds like a coo, as if she's his lover and they're talking in bed. Their interactions are always this way.

"So you did," Loki murmurs in reply and shifts his shoulders against the cell's bars. "What now?"

"Now," her lips brush against the lobe of his ear. "You let me out."

-

That is not the first time he has come into contact with the pirate known as the Lady Sif Sylvan. So called a Lady for being one of the few female pirate captains on the open sea, and even more often called the Pirate Queen for her ferociousness in all things related to bloodshed and battle. Her reputation for taking no living prisoners aboard after blowing into port or in battle was legendary.

As Captain of Her Royal Majesty's Navy, stationed in the Caribbean, Loki's work heavily involves piracy and its followers. Pirates are the main portion of his responsibilities here, and as such he's had many encounters. Including having the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the Lady Sif.

As such, he's bent over charts on his desk when the message comes in. Port Royal is well known as being a stopping place for all sorts of people, and the taverns down by the docks and the bay are always full. Outbreaks of fights aren't uncommon either, and that's the message he gets.

Normally he'd let it fall on someone else, but the officers are stretched thin, and he's one of the only commanding ones in the fort currently.

Loki grabs his coat, making sure to secure all of the buttons and smoothing his fingers over the pressed line of it, and then leaves. No doubt it's only a brawl and can quickly be taken care of. A night in the cells should sort out whatever it is. Tedious, but must be done.

The streets are their normal nighttime busy, only those out for the evening around. The fort's not far from the docks as it is, and the taverns and such are close to the water as well, meaning he doesn't have far to go.

Noises greet him before he sets eyes on the problem, and by the yelling and shouts he should know what it is that awaits. As such, when he does round the corner, he pauses, the men he brought along stilling behind him too. It's chaos, drunken men and the tavern women spilling out and away from the fight still going on inside.

Loki sighs and moves the pistol at his waist to a better position so as not to be grabbed by anyone inside.

Inside is more chaos, the floor sticky and tacky with spilt drinks and other bodily fluids, the smell no better. His lips curl and his nose wrinkles, disgusted. He takes care to brush up against the least amount of people that he possibly can, which in this situation is not a small number, but still.

He’s turning his head when he spots the familiar figure headed out the side door. He thinks that maybe he’s got it wrong, but no, the hair is the same and the boots give her away. She’s been absent from this part of the Caribbean, but he supposes that only lasted so long.

“Sort this out,” Loki says to his Lieutenant, already turning away back towards the front door. He doesn’t wait to see if Hogun will answer him, knowing it would only be a nod or a grunt either way.

He’s back outside, and the cool air blowing in from off the water hits his face, but he blinks the mist away, moving to the right to the alley where the side door of the tavern empties into. She hasn’t managed to get away, for which he’s thankful; much less work if he doesn’t have to chase her.

“I suppose I should not be surprised.”

She turns at his voice, legs pausing and spinning on her tall boots. The wide smile on her face dims somewhat when she sees the gun he has pointed at her, her lips compressing and then tipping back up into something that is not quite as pleasant as her first grin had been. Her eyes, hazel and bright even through the foggy air and the dim lighting, flick down and then back up.

The Lady Sif tilts her head, adopting an innocent expression, and steps towards him. The wide brimmed hat on her head slides down, a few curls of her dark hair sloping down her shoulder. “Whatever could I have done to surprise you, Captain? I didn’t think surprises were something you were capable of enjoying.”

Loki’s mouth twists, and he exhales through his nose. Infuriating. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

She’s sidled up close to him now, completely disregarding the pistol pointed at her. “And you for me,” she gives him a smile. “But I really don’t have the time to stay around for a chat this time, so I must go.”

He grabs her wrist with his free hand as she tries to get past him, twisting her arm in such a way that she’s now backwards to him, pulled close to his body.

“Really, Captain?” Her eyes are impossibly wide this close, and he can count the sun marks across her nose and cheeks. “Must we do this?”

He’s reinforced by the appearance of Hogun in the alley’s entrance, along with the rest of the men they brought with them. The noises from inside the tavern have dropped down to normal levels now.

She sighs, expression frustration.

Loki grins. “Yes, we really must.”

-

“This would go much easier if you simply tell me what your business is here,” Loki states, fingers sliding off the hilt of her rapier he put on the table; her hat and pistol and dagger are there as well, along with a rolled up piece of leather hide.

Sif looks at him, just moving her head from where she’s standing at the back of the cell staring out the window through the rusted bars. “It doesn’t matter what I tell you, does it? You’re still going to try and hang me.”

He glances up from the desk, looking at her fully. “Try? I rather say I will.”

She bares her teeth at him, and they’re white, sharp as if to tear into him with. “You’d hang me?”

Blinking, the image rises in his mind. The gallows are only two flights of stone stairs up from where they are now, and he can see her as she would look standing there on the platform, heavy rope around her neck, a grin on her face as she greeted death. He has hanged pirates before, given the order for them to die. He doesn’t understand why the image of her there makes his teeth grind.

“Of course. You are a pirate after all.” Loki steps away from the table, moving closer to the cell, grabbing the rolled up hide. “Your sex would not dissuade if you are looking for a free pass.”

She looks completely at ease in the jail cell he’s put her in. Her arms are crossed lazily through the bars, one fine boned wrist over the over, tan skin stark against the slightly dirty blouse she wears. “So that is the measure of Her Royal Majesty’s Captain Laufeyson?”

He does not bother to respond to that, instead giving the hide a quick shake he comes to stand fully in front of the cell. “What is this?”

Her thigh high boots tap in time on the floor as she lets out a whistle. “Why should I tell you?” The wolf’s smile, full of sharp white teeth, she gives him makes him swallow; his throat sticks, and he doesn’t know if it’s annoyance or excitement that makes it so. Her voice’s a purr when she speaks, “I doubt it would be of any interest to you.”

Loki studies her. He can tell she’s mocking him, as she so often likes to do when they meet, and he thinks back to the last time she’d slipped from his hands on the open sea. He’s drifted closer to her, stepped forward without thinking, taken in by the urge to shake her till her teeth rattle and she answers his questions.

Sif moves exactly when he turns his back to her, certain that he will get nothing further from her. Her arms are long, and she’s strong, stronger than some men. He’d failed to find the blade she slips from her boot.

He cannot move as she jerks him backwards, the cell’s bars hard through his jacket.

Well, damn.

-

The dagger’s edge kisses his neck as Loki smoothly pulls the keys from his pocket.

“There’s a good boy,” she breathes out against his ear. “Now you just slowly let me out.”

He does so, twisting his arm to slide the key in the lock, the click and snick subdued sounds over their breathing. Her eyes hold his the entire time, though he knows that she can see also from the peripheries if he were to make a move. Their positions now are a reverse from the alley, with she holding onto him instead of the other way around.

Sif pushes the cell’s door open slowly, a teasing smile on her face as she watches him. To do so she taps her boot against his leg, indicating she wants him to slide down the cell’s door with her till she slips out. The knife at his throat only lessens slightly.

“See, that wasn’t so hard now was it?” Her teeth shine bright, flickers of the flames on the wall casting oranges and reds over her tanned face. She pushes him towards the table, gaze flicking back and forth from him to up the stairs, checking to see if anyone else is coming. One handed, she lifts her hat back onto her head, and manages to put all her effects back on; he’d been suitably impressed if he hadn’t been still concerned over her slitting his throat.

Loki expects her to put him in the cell itself. To leave him there and turn the lock for his men to find later. It’s not something she hasn’t done before, but her lips purse in thought, and he knows she’s thinking of something else.

“Alright,” she declares. “Up the steps we go. And do be sure to be quiet or I’ll have to silence you myself.”

He blinks. “What?” The question comes out warbled due to the pressure on her neck, but the word forces its way out regardless.

“Insurance. Surely you can appreciate that.”

She nudges him with a knee, so tall she is that she hits him right in the back. “Up.” At his vacant, still confused expression, she clarifies, “I’m taking you with me, Captain, now move.”

-

Loki’s silent until they’re out of the fort.

They move quickly through the dark streets, taking the more stingy and back ones, her hand firmly closed around his wrist, dragging him along; she’d stripped him of his own weapons too, his sword now at the opposite hip of her rapier.

“Do you really think that you can just abscond with me and not pay for it?” Loki hisses.

Sif jerks him with her onto a small pier. She nods her head towards the boat at the end, something small, a clear order that she wants him in. “Yes, I do. Are you so beloved by your men that they’d follow you?” She grins and lowers herself into the boat after him. “I didn’t think your naval code allowed for that.”

He has to think on that. Port Royal is thin as it is, and while he’s a very capable naval officer, there’s no guarantee that they simply wouldn’t replace him. Waste of resources and all that. He swallows. “Then what exactly are you prepared to do with me?”

“I told you, insurance.” The ropes are untied now, and she lifts an oar and presses it at him. “Though if you keep talking this much and don’t row, I might be tempted to just shoot you and toss you into the water instead.”

He falls silent then, falling into line with her oar as she leads them out the bay, no doubt towards where her ship is at rest.

-

They meet first when he barely holds the rank of Lieutenant.

She is not so old herself, but where he’s not fully aware and committed to action, she is sure.

She bashes him over the head and leaves him in a rowboat to be found by the rest of the men.

That encounter sets up a game of chase that has spanned the last five years and the open sea between them; push and pull like the very tides that moves the water so.

-

The cabin’s door opens, and Loki looks up from where he’s been counting the grains of wood in the table he’s chained too. Or well, the table his hand is fastened to.

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you can stay,” Sif says, kicking the door closed behind her. “Heimdall wanted you thrown straight back off, but I talked him down from that.”

“Oh joy,” Loki deadpans, remembering the way the man had actually taken a step towards him as soon as she’d hoisted him over, having no trouble believing that he did indeed want to send him overboard, probably with weights at his ankles no doubt.

She smiles, always the quick and easy curve of her lips for her, and sits across from him. The table takes up a large part of her cabin, and it’s nice wood too. There’s maps and odd trinkets and treasures, picked up along her journeys, and he can make out things from Singapore and Indonesia, the Caribbean not the only representation here. The sheets on her bunk are nice, smooth looking and clean, and there’s stained glass in pieces around too. It would appear that the Lady Sif likes her comforts. “Don’t sound so morose. You could be dead.”

“And why am I not? It was to my understanding that you never took anyone apart from your crew alive.”

An odd expression comes over her face, her mouth going soft, the tension draining from where she’d been grinning so everything is lax instead of taut. “Rumors,” she quietly states. She blinks and then raises her eyes back to him. “Didn’t know you were so fond of them.”

Loki has the distinct impression that he’s offended her somehow. Words rise up, and where normally he would be so good at deploying them, at giving them meaning and purpose and intent, and to explain what he means or doesn’t mean, they die on his tongue now.

He’s saved from trying again to fumble and find something to say by the knock on the cabin door.

“In,” Sif commands.

It’s Heimdall who enters, and Loki becomes even more aware of the cold iron around his wrist, keeping him chained to the table. He wills himself to remain still under the other man’s gaze, though it’s impossible to keep the snarl that curls at the corners of his mouth. They’ve never gotten along, and they have matching scars to prove it.

“Do I need to leave the two of you alone? You want to stare at one another more? Or are we going to behave?”

Her second grunts, clearly just as annoyed at her teasing nature as Loki is.

Sif cocks her head, her face fierce. “Let me try that again. Sit. Now.” Her voice is hard now, cold metal like the chains on his wrist and the rapier at her waist.

Heimdall does as she commands, and Loki can see now how she’s managed to be so successful as a Captain. She’s personable and enticing and yet capable of being hard when necessary. He has seen these qualities in her before, but now they have been affirmed.

“Good.” She slides a skin over, and it’s the same one from before and the one that Heimdall had walked in with. She looks back to Loki, wide eyes holding his steady. “You wanted to know why I was in town, this is it.” She unrolls the hide, and then taps her fingers on it.

Loki looks down, eyebrows contracting as he tries to make sense of what is on it. He blinks, realization dawning on him on just what she’s found. The ink has lost some of its color, but not faded so much as to lose its image. A prize if in indeed it is no longer lost. He keeps his face blank as he raises his gaze. “And? What is it?”

“He knows what it is,” Heimdall answers. He turns his head to Sif, eyes mistrustful. “He lies.”

Sif’s lips contract, her expression thoughtful. “The Captain has always had a clever tongue.” She stares at him, and her eyelashes are black fans against her cheeks. “Will you lie to me again?”

Loki swallows, shifting in the chair, one boot thudding against the floor as he rearranges his legs, and the chain rattling before quieting. “It’s not real.”

“But it is.”

He snorts. “It’s not. What you seek doesn’t exist.”

“But,” her voice is hard, not demanding, but sure. “It does. There are those who swear they’ve seen it.”

“Rumors,” Loki sneers.

She raises an eyebrow at that. “But I thought you were so fond of rumors.”

His face feels hot, and if he could look in glass he’s sure his normally pale skin would be flushed.

To further his embarrassment Heimdall laughs, a deep chuckle that turns into something fuller as the amusement stretches out.

Loki’s beginning to think it would have been better if they’d just thrown him over.

-

It is days later that they discuss it again. Port Royal is far behind them, now only blue water from all four directions as scenery.

He’s been allowed up on deck, no longer considered a threat, whether that is smart or not is debatable. The rest of her crew leave him be, and he takes the time to breathe in the salt laden air as he admires her ship; it’s a lovely one, with three masts, and he’s seen it before in combat, but never this close to where he can see the stitching in her sails and the nicks in her deck.

Loki leans over the railing, watching the water that laps against the hull, white cresting against the dark wood. Heavy thudding comes from behind him, a familiar sound to him now. He doesn’t turn his head, even when tanned arms join his against the railing.

“I see you finally ditched the wig and hat.”

He does spare her a glance then, sniffing. True, he had left the two adornments behind as they’d grown itchy and he rather liked the wind in his dark locks.

Sif grins at him, an amused spin in her eyes and mouth. “I like it. Never would have guessed your hair curled.”

The corners of his mouth threaten to lift upwards, and it’s a small smile he cannot fight. He sobers, looking out at the sea. “You really think you can find it?”

“Does it matter?” She shrugs, and the open neck of her shirt slips over her shoulder, exposing a glimpse of her collarbone. “It’s sort of what we do. Chase down fantasies and stories, treasure to be had.”

An exhale, a sort of punched out noise that he cannot fight either, a distorted laugh. “Yes, that must be enjoyable.”

“Pirate,” she answers, and it’s the wolf’s smile she gives him again.

-

“I’ve seen it.”

Sif tilts her head from where she sits at the table. She keeps him in her cabin at night, on the floor with a made up pallet, in sight where she can kill him if need be. “Seen what?” she asks softly.

Loki sits up, as he’d been reclined out against the planks. His dinner rests next to him, the dish empty now. “The Lost Treasure of Odin. What you seek, I’ve seen it.”

She moves quickly, rising from the table on bare feet to cross to where he is. She sits, falling to her knees. Instead of her normal attire, she’s dressed in looser clothing, a shirt that gapes open and breeches that show the leanness and muscles of her legs. He once tried to imagine her in gowns and lace, but now no longer thinks he could ever picture that true. “Liar,” she breathes out into his face, a label that strikes hot.

No, not about this.

He shakes his head. “I have. Once when I was younger before it was lost again. I didn’t know what it was then, only whispers, and I let it slip through my fingers.” He narrows his eyes at her, fancying that even though the cabin’s dark he still knows the angles of her face, the expression she wears, so close she is. “Much like I’ve let you slip through my grasp before.”

“So bitter you sound.” Sif reaches out and her fingertips graze his forehead. “Is it so bad to lose to me? You would see me dead otherwise.”

Loki can feel the calluses on her fingers, and his eyes droop at her touch. His skin feels too tight then, itchy where her fingers rest. “As if you would not do the same?”

This close her eyes are impossibly wide, face a study in planes and symmetry, framed by the arch of her bird like eyebrows. “You’re still alive aren’t you.”

It’s not posited as a question, and later that will give Loki cause to think; because he is still alive, he’s not dead, and if one thinks on it, what use does she really have for him, because sure he is valuable as a naval officer with information on noted waterways and how to move in and out, and he’s seen the treasure before, but still she can do it on her own.

He says nothing and the silence stretches out between them like slow drip of molasses.

Finally, Sif speaks, shifting closer still. “Tell me about it. What you remember.”

“As my lady commands.”

-

“There are others,” Sif tells him the following day. They are both on deck again. “Who seek the Treasure as well. Secrets have gotten out about it. I have the map, but there are others that know where to go as well.”

That’s not surprising in the least.

The ship’s crew bustles around them, every person busy with their duties and tasks. Loki admires their ethic and how she runs her ship. Heimdall stands at the helm, and he can feel the other man’s gaze on him from even here.

Others, Loki thinks, including Her Royal Majesty’s Navy. What a prize that would be to return with, enough certainly to promote him, enough to see him from being stationed at Port Royal. The Lady Sif is smart, but Loki is clever, two entirely different levels of play.

The ship’s prow has been pointed towards their destination for days now, a steady course that has taken them north and then east.

Finally, he leaves his thoughts and bares his teeth, a mockery of a grin. “No doubt. It is a highly sought out prize.”

-

Sif’s words prove to be true when they arrive at the map’s location.

The island is not alone, another tall masted ship at rest close to shore, visible through a looking glass.

Loki watches as Sif’s face contorts into anger and frustration, a fierce sort of loveliness that he takes pleasure in viewing. She is at her most beautiful when she is angered, a creature of drive and passion and practiced movements, liquid metal that falls upon those in front of her.

Heimdall speaks words of caution and she turns on him.

“I did not come all this way, search all this time, to turn tail at the sight of Fandral because he got here first.” Her nostrils flare.

Loki observes while pretending to stare out at the caves. He edges his way into the conversation, offering up a plan. “Two can sneak in well enough, perhaps take it while the others remain oblivious.”

“Two against his crew?” Heimdall asks, incredulity and stupidity in his tone.

Loki shrugs. “I see no reason why the whole crew would be there. Only a few men, the rest to guard the ship and make ready for departure.”

“And you would go on shore, liar?” Heimdall snarls, clearly unforgiving of their past encounters.

He shrugs again, choosing to say nothing and sliding his gaze over to the Captain.

Sif eyes him, silent, and only opens her mouth when Heimdall goes to argue. “No, you will stay with the ship and the crew, Heimdall. Captain Laufeyson will come with me. He won’t do anything stupid.”

The last is said directly at him. A challenge, a threat.

He returns it, unwavering, and innocently asks, “You will be returning my belongings to me, yes? I don’t quite see how sending me in unarmed will improve our odds.”

-

His sword at his hip is a comfort as they sneak through the caves on silent feet. They both inhale through their nostrils and exhale again, certain that the only sounds are the natural ones of the cave itself, the water dripping from the rocks and the echoes of the waves outside. The smell of salt and decay is all around them, most unpleasant.

Loki watches the back of Sif’s head, admiring her steady gait across the slick rocks and the using bounce of her dark hair as a guide. Voices rise as they move further in until the back widens open to show the true open part of the cave.

Sif crouches down, reaching back with slim fingers to pull Loki alongside her, both now settling on the backs of their feet. Below them the cave dips into a cavern, and strewn everywhere is gold and chests and silks and other various luxury items. It’s a treasure cove, and there’s only three men picking through it all. Sif’s eyes do not linger there though, dismissing the man who must be Fandral and the two others.

“It would not be held out in the open,” Sif murmurs.

Loki nods, chin brushing against her shoulder. The hide’s image rises in his mind, the heavily decorated chest that had been shown to house the treasure. “It will be in the wall, the rock, hollowed out and hidden away, most likely.”

It is her turn to nod, and she turns her head to look at him, their noses bumping so close they are. “Yes.”

Loki turns his gaze away, unsettled by her closeness and his thoughts of thievery, the two waring against one another. He looks out, straining his eyes to see if there’s any visible part of the rock wall that looks disturbed. Something sticks out, and he raises a hand to point. ‘There, possibly.”

She studies him, calculating, measuring him up. “You go get it, see if it’s there. I will distract them.”

He goes, shuffling slowly along the lip of the cave.

-

Her distraction, Loki discovers, is to simply walk out and start chatting with them, as if they are discussing the latest bit of news or gossip over breakfast.

He finds that he guessed correctly in assuming the blond man with an ostentatious hat upon his head was Captain Fandral. The man greets her with a smile, and a loud, “The Lady Sif! So nice to see you, Your Highness.”

Loki watches from his spot, fingers digging into the rocks for any edges that would give away a hollowed out spot.

Sif gives the other three a cheerful look, head tilted and eyes wide as she steps smoothly over the piles of gold and belongings. “I saw your ship and thought I would simply say hello.”

Loki’s fingers find a catch simultaneously with the other pirate’s reply. “Well, now that you’ve said hello you can be on your way again.”

He digs into the cave’s wall, fingernails catching and breaking, and he tugs, pulling it out and away. His heart stops at what he finds.

“Oh, I don’t think so. You’ve found some nice things here, Fandral.” Sif kicks at a pile of coins, musically sounding as they fall and roll.

“Aye, and I found them first. You best just turn around now.”

Loki sees her hand itch to move to her waist, to her weapons, and he wants to call out to tell her not to reach for them. His own hand holds only dark air in the crevice, empty, and he doesn’t have his pistol that she’d refused to return to him.

“I think not. When have you ever known me to shy away,” Sif answers.

The other pirate’s face splits in an oily grin, whiskers of his mustache tipping up. “Never. You do not disappoint there. But I think,” his hand gestures to his feet, to what they had failed to see from their vantage point before. “That I have what you seek already. So I see no need to keep you. Foolish to come alone, my Queen.”

It’s mocking, her title.

Sif sees it too, her eyes dipping and then rising again. Snarling, she reaches for her waist while the others do as well, but she’s faster and it’s not her rapier she goes to grab. Her pistol and her aim is true, firing at the man to her left, dead center in the chest. He falls backwards, and she spins away, drawing her sword, and ducking to avoid the remaining two and their pistols.

Loki rises from his crouched position, looking down as the other man fires and misses. Fandral does not however, and though it’s only a graze, Sif steps back, bellowing in frustration. Ignoring his protesting legs and the warning in his head, he jumps down. Thankfully, he only stumbles, and then he’s in the fight as well.

A pistol he may not have, but he’s not lacking with the sword in his hand, nor the dagger he throws and buries in the throat of the man about to cleave her head from her shoulders in her momentary hesitation at her wound.

Loki halts, seeing the pirate Captain making his exit with the small chest, but then steps forward to her. He reaches out, sparing a glance to make sure the man is dead; he is, dagger in his throat and all, and touches her, eyes trained on the streaks of red on her shirt. “You are alright?”

Sif nods, biting her lip, and kicks the leg of the dead man near her. “Damn it all.”

She straightens and his hand falls away.

-

“You didn’t have to stay with me.”

This is later, when they are back on board, and in her cabin, ship set on a course to find Fandral, blackness outside, darkness inside except for the splotches of moonlight that creeps through the glass.

Loki looks up from the table to where Sif sits on her bunk. Her shirt is raised and she’s sewing the gash closed herself. He watches her slim fingers with the needle and thread, thinking how lucky that the bullet had only grazed instead of becoming lodged. Another scar, and there’s skin exposed. He wants to touch her, see if he can bring her to life like she had been before in battle. He looks away. “I did not,” he concedes.

“You could have gone after Fandral yourself, probably gotten the chest.”

He holds her gaze, and this is something they have come to do. Long looks that convey so much more than the words he can spin from his tongue. “I could have.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t.”

Sif laughs, a low sound, a pleased sound. “He got away.”

Loki shrugs. “We’ll find him.”

We, he says, and strangely he does not mind it. It is only a half lie now.

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part One. There will be a sequel at some point.


End file.
